Comment on Study: Social media don't displace in-person hangouts for teens
jeffw@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Once again, the media taking a study and pushing a narrative with it.
From age 12 to 14 and 14–16 years, the interaction term between social media use and the intercept (i.e., overall level) of social anxiety was negative and significant, indicating that increased social media use forecasted a small decline in social skills among those with higher levels of social anxiety symptoms
So, there’s no overall relationship, except a negative one once you factor in an interaction term.
Theres also nothing here that says people who spend more time on social media are more mentally “healthy.” Just that they have more friends. Or do they use social media more because they have more friends? This isn’t some slam dunk for social media.
Hiro8811@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Also I didn’t see mentioned what apps. While some apps like WhatsApp and Signal(although no teen is using it) do increase in person meetings they are not the apps that people refer to when they cause social media of causing depression, anxiety, etc. These apps are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, tik tok redit. Can’t really speak for myself as I’m an introvert and never really used anything other than YouTube but I do regret getting a smartphone .
jeffw@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Even among the apps you list as higher risk, I’d imagine there are differences
RatBin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Agreed. I use WhatsApp to coordinate a work / study group and the only notifications I receive are related to events hold in person or by zoom / meet. Nothing much past that. I had to go through loops to get rid of reddit and YouTube.